Is Fox TV Shepard Smith “fair and balanced” or a liberal-left Shepardista?

Has anybody else noticed how far on the liberal-left side of the political spectrum that Fox TV’s Shepard Smith appears to be? This “Shepardista” is as “fair and balanced” as the Sandinista Communists were for freedom and democracy in Nicaragua. Not!!

I don’t have a problem with a liberal-leftist on Fox TV. But I object to their claim that “news anchor” Shepard Smith is a “fair and balanced” reporter. Time and again he editorializes in favor of the liberal left position – whether it is as an advocate of their views or in attacking the conservative position.

Shepard Smith uses sarcasm and opinion sneakily camouflaged as fact to constantly denigrate the conservative position as if he is reporting facts. All the while pretending to be reporting the news “fair and balanced.”

I’d noticed this before but only started taking notes in the last week, wondering if this is a pattern. It is. You judge, from my notes.

On 5/3 Shepard Smith reported on the imprisonment of “Chinese dissident” Chen Guangcheng (see my previous report: Chinese Chen Guangcheng Dissented from What? The REAL War on Women) and what the United States could do to help him after he’d taken refuge in our embassy, and was then tricked into leaving by U.S. embassy officials who told him his wife and family were now at risk.

Offering his help to the wimpy response of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Shepard Smith’s “fair and balanced” report included this comment: “China is our big lender and we have got to get along, so what can you do?”

I have no recollection of Shepard Smith suggesting the same helpful idea when Vice President Biden suggested that he “understood” and didn’t want to “second guess” the “zero population” policy in Red China on his visit last August, which includes forced abortions of women who have a second child.

In other words, the policy of Red China which forces families to kill babies or face forced abortions, and which results in the elimination of most female babies in Red China, isn’t something we should protest because after all “we have got to get along, so what can you do”?

On May 7, Shepard Smith spoke of the President’s new flip-flop on gay marriage, where the new Obama position has “evolved” to his personal endorsement of the end of traditional marriage, that “it is his base that is trying to pull him into the 20th century.”

There was no mention by Shepard Smith of the minor detail that in 32 states, now most recently this past Tuesday South Carolina, that have put the defense of marriage (ie. opposition to gay marriage) on their ballot for their citizens to vote on.

There was no mention by Shepard Smith, that 32 out of 32 states which voted on this topic, voted to stay in the last century rather than follow the Democratic “base” into the 20th century.

Oh how old fashioned, fuddy-duddy are those conservative, values voters in those 32 states so why would “fair and balanced” news anchor Shephard Smith want to mention this “minor” detail of 32 defeats for his “modern” friends of the Democratic “base.”

No mention by Shepard Smith that his hero President Barack Obama sides with the losing side in 32 out of 32 states which represent some 40% of the electoral college votes needed to win the Presidency.

Instead, Shepard Smith does the usual liberal-left thing, which is that their position is “modern” and also “the future” but anyone who opposes them is “backward” from “the past.”

That’s “fair and balanced” reporting?

On May 8, Shepard Smith attacked conservatives who want to control illegal immigration, as well as those who favor the use of drones to attack terrorists, all with one clever slap, saying:

“…it wasn’t that long ago that otherwise sane people were talking about building a fence. But now they are talking about droning everybody to death.”

Way to go Shepard Smith, I’m sure all your liberal-left fans yukkety-yukked up that one – but are conservatives and fair-and-balanced-news seekers, applauding these constant jibes at the conservative position while you pretend to be a neutral, “fact” reporter?

But Shepard Smith didn’t stop with that one double-jab on May 8, but continued.

Another reporter cut in to say that 24 unmanned drones are being planned for use by the border patrol. But these 24 drones can also be sent anywhere within the United States within 3 hours” to go after illegals who can then be spotted, and then captured by the Border Patrol.

But that would require a lot more jails, retorted the ever-helpful Shepard Smith, and “the answer is always, build more jails. Right” (with dripping sarcasm on that last word).

This is “fair and balanced” news reporting?

In other words Shepard Smith, the funny guy, thinks it is hilarious and stupid, to put people in jail who break American laws, and perhaps even stupid to try to capture and deport them (ie. and release them in Mexico so they can come back and try again) rather than simply leave them alone wherever they are in the USA.

Is that “fair and balanced” reporting or is that “Saul Alinsky 101” where you use ridicule and sarcasm to trash your opponent and his position, the way that Barack Obama has so expertly done time and time again?

Also on May 8, Shepard Smith went after one of his favorite targets – continuing to boost his standing with the liberal left – Rick Santorum.

Shepard Smith claims “Rick Santorum once said he would support any other candidate for President except Mitt Romney yet last night he sent an email saying he was supporting Mitt Romney.”

Vying for a slot in the next Obama for President TV commercial which will play over and over again on MSNBC (ie. surely adding “Even Fox News says…”), Shepard Smith “reported” … that Rick Santorum had during the primary, said that Romney was “”the worst Republican in the country to put up against Mitt Romney.”

That, advises Smith in case you didn’t get it, is “weirdness” and we should realize, the big thing is that he did this by email, not in a speech.

This segment continued for over 30 seconds of opining and trashing Rick Santorum, instead of simply reporting what Santorum had said in his email to supporters, before then cutting to a liberal Democrat to attack it.

Who needs a liberal Democrat when you have Shepard Smith pretending to be a “fair and balanced” reporter of the news?

We had all three sides of this report thanks to Shepard Smith – the report, the left, the right, all of it. Except he’d still not told us what Rick Santorum actually said, as he went on and on attacking him for saying it “last night” in the email to supporters (which included the undersigned, see my previous report HERE).

But the sarcasm and criticism of Rick Santorum didn’t end there.

Added the increasingly sarcastic Shepard Smith in this “fair and balanced” (sic!!!) report about the Rick Santorum emailed to his 160,000 supporters, “that ringing shot from the mountaintop ought to really help Romney.”

WANTED: any link to any story anytime in which this Shepardista EVER reported on Barack Obama as speaking “from the mountaintop.”

Carl Cameron, the fact-reporter, finally countered this sarcastic, negative lead in by Shepard Smith, with actual quotes from the email of Santorum, concluding his truly fair and balanced report by suggesting of Romney and Santorum, “They do plan to meet again.”

Listening to Shepard Smith “report” on Rick Santorum was like tuning in for a few minutes to leftwing extremist Rachel “madcow” Maddow on MSNBC.

Another report from 5/9. Shepard Smith sternly “corrected” Fox News Reporter and Anchor Brett Baier’s report – but it was more in the nature of a rebuke from the left.

Brett had reported that the President was for state’s rights now on the gay marriage issue but was not for states rights when it was time to force companies to carry contraceptive coverage. Brett gave a “fair and balanced” report that put the new comment by the President, in context.

Shepard Smith interrupted with his “correction” – “you mean, make the insurance companies pay”. It was more of a statement worded as if it were a question.

And Shepard Smith pounced again before the clearly surprised Brett Baier could defend himself, saying “shades of discrimination and states rights, here we go all over again” – ie. conservatives who oppose the President on gay marriage are discriminating against gays the same as they were against blacks, using the states rights argument.

Brett Baier finally got in a word to defend himself, saying that he’d accurately reported that the President was going to force companies to carry the contraceptive insurance and not worry about state’s rights or discriminating against people based on their religious teaching, but then on gay marriage he is in favor of state’s rights (ie. if a state says two men are married then , that is the end of the argument, and the other 49 states must accept that, period) and allowing each state to do as it chooses.

Except no one mentioned: if marriage is legal in one state then all other states could be forced to recognize that marriage, and never mind “states rights.”

Remember, it isn’t a question of a commentator offering his opinion, that I have a problem with here.

Rather, Sephard Smith, like Brent Baier and Carl Cameron, claims to be a “fact reporter” not an opinion/commentator like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

Poor Shepard Smith is really distraught about this and had some strong (negative) things to say about those backwards Tea Party types who he avers, threw the statesman-hero-Senator he admires so much, Richard Lugar, out on his ear this a day earlier in Indiana.

He led in with a tease: “Dick Lugar defeated in a primary, is there any room in the Republican Party for a moderate” (break to a commercial).

The “fair and balanced” part of the report gave plenty of coverage to the defeated Senator Richard Lugar, who lost the GOP primary this past Tuesday.

Lugar’s defeat speech was carried, where he lectures that we live in troubled times and have so many problems in America, so many divisions, and then assured us that he still did not understand why people didn’t vote for him because, “these divisions are not insurmountable, and I believe good people can work together for the good of their country.”

Opined the ever-helpful-to-the-left Shepard Smith, many Democrats in Indiana tried to help the Tea Party candidate win because they think Lugar was the stronger candidate and they can win the seat.

Good old Lugar, we were told (several times) had just tried to “reach across the aisle” during his career, to the nice Democrats.

Continued Smith, polls showed more Democrats wanted Richard Lugar to win than Republicans in Indiana – the real “punch” line to prove how stupid and silly those Republican voters were to turn out “sure-shot” liberal GOP U.S. Senator, Richard Lugar.

Finally, and I am happy to conclude on this note, our hero, the victorious candidate who won by an enormous margin against Shepard Smith’s friend Dick Lugar, cut in with a few seconds rebuttal – not a fair and balanced report at all but, a knockout punch nonetheless:

Rabbit-punched Richard Mourdock, the victorious GOP primary winner against Dick Lugar, “of course they supported him, he has supported the Obama agenda in the U.S. Senate, time and time again” as a U. S. Senator.

Shepard Smith, you are not fair and balanced, so move over Rachel Maddow, make some space for him next to you, for he belongs on your MSNBC station, not on Fox News.

The entire cast of Fox Cable News reporters – news anchors, reporters or commentators – are ALL ranked in viewership/popularity, ahead of ALL of the other rival cable news networks.

But Shepard Smith, while still far ahead of Rachel Maddow and anyone from CNN or MSNBC, is in dead last place among all Fox news anchors, reporters or commentators. And, deservedly so.

At the least, Shepard Smith should be off the list of “fair and balanced” reporters at Fox News TV. If they have a place for him as a liberal commentator fine, that would be honest advertising, to drop all pretext that he is “fair and balanced.”

Shepard Smith makes a joke out of that saying because he’s not fair, he’s very unbalanced, he is very reliably unfair, sarcastic and one-sided in favoring the liberal view and trashing the conservative view.

If he makes you angry, why not “tip off” Fox News, right now, by sending an email about their in-house Shepardista (include a link to this story to back up that yours – and mine – is a “fair and balanced” FACTUAL complaint, replete with very specific documentation): [email protected]

And I’d be happy to hear back from you if you have any further Shepardista Reports to add (comment below), or a copy of your complaint to Fox, or any response you receive. Of course, if you think Shephard Smith represents “fair and balanced” news reporting step right up and tell us, how so?

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HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania. I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is). And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.